beyond nightfall. For all he knew, the band slept in the afternoon and stayed up all night, and Fisher didn’t have the time to conduct protracted surveillance. At 9:00 P.M. he left Setubal and arrived in Portinho da Arrabida thirty minutes later and retraced his route into the mountains. His Garmin 6 °Cx led him back to the hiking trail parking lot he’d spotted earlier. There were no other cars in the lot. He got out, opened the trunk, and changed from civilian clothes to his tactical gear, then set out.
The hiking trail to the escarpment above Zahm’s villa was less than a half mile long, but it crossed two ridge lines and covered a thousand feet of descent, so it was just after ten when Fisher saw the lights of the house appear through the trees. He dropped to his belly and crawled to the edge of the escarpment.
He had an ideal view of the villa, encompassing the entire west side and the deck and pool terraces; the party was in full swing on the latter, and Fisher could see that Zahm had guests — all of them female, all wearing bikinis. Fisher could hear strains of salsa music emanating from hidden speakers, and the area was lit by kerosene torches along the railing. Including Zahm and his men, Fisher counted twelve bodies — a couples get-together — but none of them appeared to be servants, which meant he could explore the villa without much worry of being interrupted. That was the only good news. With so many partygoers, separating Zahm from the pack would be dicey. Save for the glow cast from several recessed pot lights, the interior of the villa was dark.
Fisher stayed still, watching until he was certain he hadn’t missed anyone in the house, then took a final night-vision/infrared/electromagnetic scan. Then he crawled backward into the trees, stood up, and followed a zigzagging trail down the face of the escarpment, using boulders and undergrowth to shield himself until the terraces disappeared from view below the top of the cliff. By the time he reached the saddle in which the villa sat, he was fifty feet west of the euonymus hedges bordering the property. After a quick night-vision/infrared check through the Tridents, he got up and ran, hunched over, to the hedges. On the other side of these he could hear the gurgle of the moat pool’s filtering system. The offshore wind had picked up, carrying with it sounds of laughter and splashing intermixed with salsa music.
Fisher eased forward, following the hedges until they ended at the stone patio, where he peeked around the corner, then kept going. A short sprint over a decorative, wooden bridge took him over the moat to the villa’s rear French doors. The right-hand door swung open under his hand. He slipped inside and shut it behind him. Despite the wind outside, the air conditioner was on and the temperature hovered in the mid-sixties. Fisher picked his way through the house, pausing at the entrance to every hallway and door to check for signs of alarms or sensors, but found nothing until he reached what he assumed was Zahm’s master suite, near the front of the house and overlooking the ocean and Portinho da Arrabida. The terra-cotta-tiled floor was bare save for a tatami runner around its perimeter; through the EM, Fisher saw a lone rectangle of swirling blue waves emanating from beneath the runner. Directly above this spot was a framed painting. Fisher couldn’t help but smile: Master thief Charles Zahm had gone with, of all things, a wall safe hidden behind a bad Monet reproduction. Fisher crossed the room to the painting and, careful to stay off the runner, examined the frame and the wall behind it for more sensors. There were none. He found the hidden latch on the frame’s left side and swung it open, revealing a two-by-two-foot recessed wall safe. While Zahm had chosen the obvious route for the safe’s location, he’d spared no expense on the safe itself. Bypassing the electronic lock would take time Fisher didn’t have, and blasting the door open would also demolish much of the master suite. He needed Zahm’s cooperation.
He was considering his options when he heard the opening of a sliding-glass door. Fisher stepped to the bedroom door and peeked around the corner, down the carpeted hall, in time to see a man and woman stepping into one of the guest bedrooms. The door clicked shut, and moments later came a woman’s giggle.
Fisher stepped out, crept down the hall to the door, pressed his ear to the wood, and heard the creak of bed-springs as the man and woman lay down. Fisher drew the SC pistol and with his thumb flipped the selector to DART, then reached down with his left hand and gave the knob a test turn. Unlocked. He turned the knob an inch, paused, then another inch, then another until the knob reached its stop. He swung open the door and stepped through to the left. From his reconnaissance he knew the layout of the room, and now he turned right, bringing the SC up. Neither the man nor the woman had heard him enter. Fisher fired a dart into the man’s shoulder blades, then sidestepped right and fired again. The second dart struck the woman in the side of the neck. They both went limp, unconscious.
Another giggle. The slap of flesh on flesh. A squeal. The noises were coming from outside.
Fisher pressed himself against the wall, eased up to the corner, and poked his head around it. Another couple appeared at the top of the terrace steps and crossed the patio to the sliding doors. Fisher stepped backward down the hall until he was deeper in the shadows, then crouched down and raised the SC.
Ten seconds passed.
From another part of the villa a door slammed, followed by the distinctive hum of an automatic garage door opening. An engine revved to life. A few moments later the garage door closed. Four down, Fisher thought. He couldn’t afford to assume anything about this latest couple’s departure, however. They could be gone five minutes or the rest of the night. He would assume the latter.
It was time to gamble. Fisher went back into the guest bedroom and found the unconscious man’s Hawaiian shirt lying beside the bed. He slipped it on over his tac suit, then went out the front sliding doors, paused to put aside his rifle, pistol, and Tridents, then took a deep breath and walked to the terrace steps, careful to allow only his head and shoulders to appear over the cliff’s edge.
“Hey, Chucky, phone!” he called through cupped hands in his best British accent.
In unison, the group around the pool stopped and looked up at him.
Fisher felt his heart lurch. After five long seconds of silence, Zahm yelled back, “Don’t call me that, damn it! I told you!”
Zahm handed his drink to one of the girls and headed for the stairs. Fisher sprinted back to the villa, scooped up his gear, and then returned to the hallway where he shed the Hawaiian shirt. He brought up the SC pistol, took a step forward. The sliding door whooshed open, then banged shut. When Zahm appeared in the living room and started toward the kitchen, where the phone was located, Fisher tracked him for two seconds, then fired. The dart hit Zahm beneath the right earlobe. He gasped, stumbled; then his knees went out from under him and he collapsed. Fisher crossed to him and snagged him by the collar and dragged him down the hall into the master bedroom, where he flex-cuffed his hands and feet.
He gave Zahm a quick pat down and found a Colt.25 semiautomatic pistol in his waistband. This complicated things. If the boss was armed, the underlings would be armed. Probably. Another assumption Fisher had to make. He considered trying a Cottonball shot, but the distance and the wind made accurate hits difficult. He would need to get close and dart them. And that was iffy. Even in their drunken state, the remaining three men were ex-SAS. They’d lived and breathed firearms for many years; even if they were drunk, Fisher didn’t put his odds above 50 percent.
The kernel of an idea formed in his head.
He found the servants’ changing room, a small closet off the laundry room, by the garage door, and found a white smock and a pair of khaki pants and sandals that fit reasonably well, then went to the kitchen.
Sitting on the counter were a dozen liquor bottles, but the emptiest ones seemed to be those needed for mojitos. Perhaps it was time for a special Sam Fisher concoction. He found a glass pitcher in one of the cabinets, mixed up a batch of mojitos, then set it aside and turned to his SC-20.
He was halfway down the terrace steps before he was noticed. Welcoming shouts and cheers rose from the group around the pool, and by the time Fisher reached the deck they were walking toward him. Fisher’s Portuguese was rudimentary, but his French was better, so he switched mental gears and said in French-accented, halting Portuguese, “Mojitos. Senhor Zahm’s compliments.”
